Is the winter solstice a festival? What are the customs and meanings?
Winter solstice in ancient times It is indeed a special festival.This festival is also called the Winter Festival.It is the time when the ancients believed that the cold weather began.After that, China will enter a day when the climate is getting colder and colder.Therefore, whenever the winter solstice comes, people will sacrifice to the gods and ancestors.Celebrate with the custom of eating special food and keeping healthy.
The winter solstice Introduction
The winter solstice, also known as the short day solstice, winter festival, Yasui, winter worship, etc., has both natural and humanistic connotations.It is not only an important solar term in the twenty-four solar terms, but also a Chinese folk festival.traditional festival.The winter solstice is one of the four seasons and eight festivals, and is regarded as a big festival in winter.There are differences in the content or details of the custom of the winter solstice due to different regions.In some coastal areas of southern China, there is the custom of worshipping ancestors and feasting on the winter solstice; in northern China, there is the custom of eating dumplings on the winter solstice every year.
The meaning of the winter solstice
The winter solstice is a solar term divided by astronomy, and it was called "the day is short" and "the day is short to" in ancient times.On the winter solstice, the sun is located at 270 degrees ecliptic longitude, and the sun is almost directly on the Tropic of Cancer.It is the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.In most parts of southern my country, the sunrise to the sun does not take about 10 hours.After the winter solstice, as the earth orbits around the sun, the direct sunlight zone gradually moves north, making the days in the northern hemisphere grow longer and the nights shorter.
On the winter solstice, although the altitude of the sun is the lowest and the sunshine time is the shortest, the heat absorbed by the ground is more than the heat lost.Before and after "Sanjiu", the heat stored on the ground is the least and the weather is the coldest, so it is said that "cold is at Sanjiu".Astronomy regards the winter solstice as the beginning of winter, which is obviously too late for most parts of our country.During the winter solstice, the average temperature in the northwest plateau is generally below 0°C, and in the southern region it is only about 6°C to 8°C.However, in the low-altitude valleys in the northwest and south, even in the coldest month of January, the average temperature is still above 10°C.
Folk customs of the winter solstice
1.Worshiping ancestors:
Since the Zhou Dynasty, there have been sacrificial activities on the day of the winter solstice."With the winter solstice, the gods, people and ghosts will be brought to the sky." On this day, ancestors will be worshipped in many places, and even the poorest families will use their usual savings to buy new clothes and prepare sacrificial supplies.
2.Traditional food:
The winter solstice has its own special food, such as northern dumplings, Chaoshan dumplings, southeastern mochi, Taizhou Leiyuan, Hefei pumpkin cake, Ningbo sweet potato soup Fruit, Tengzhou mutton soup, Jiangnan rice, Suzhou wine, etc.The custom of eating dumplings in the north was left behind in memory of the medical saint Zhang Zhongjing who gave up medicine on the winter solstice.In addition, on the day of the winter solstice, parents will stick two winter festival circles on the doors and windows of their homes, and some people will also make circles on conspicuous places such as tables, cabinets, ladders, beds, etc., and the bow of the fisherman’s boat, The horns of the farmer’s cattle, the pig house where the pigs are raised, and the fruit trees planted by the fruit farmers are no exception.This is a sacrifice to the gods and gods in the world, in order to bless the safety of the family.
3.Winter Solstice Health:
Winter Solstice is one of the most important solar terms in health preservation, mainly because of the "winter solstice one yang birth", so women and the elderly should pay special attention to this day To keep warm from the cold, you can also soak your feet in the evening, take appropriate supplements, and eat some liver-protecting foods such as spinach, celery, and pork liver.
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